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French professor receives Glycerine Innovation Award for research into new applications

A French researcher was honored at the 2015 Annual Meeting of the American Oil Chemists’ Society (AOCS) in Orlando, Florida, for his work of turning glycerine into high-value products, the American Cleaning Institute (ACI) announced yesterday.

Full Professor and Deputy Director of the Unit of Catalysis and Solid State Chemistry at Lille University Franck Dumeignil won the 2015 Glycerine Innovation Award, sponsored by the ACI and the National Biodiesel Board (NBB). The award recognizes outstanding achievement for research into new applications for glycerine, particularly commercial applications.

The rapid growth of global biodiesel consumption has led to a glycerine glut. Dumeignil’s research team is developing methods using new catalysts and processes to address the problem of impurities in crude glycerine, which inhibits process efficiency.

“We work with industrial stakeholders to be as close as possible to the industrial reality and to fit with the market and customers’ demands,” Dumeignil said. “We are now moving to the pilot scale for some technologies we demonstrated at the lab scale.”

Dumeignil’s recent research in this area has been published in such journals as ACS Catalysis, Applied Catalysis B: Environmental, ChemSusChem and Green Chemistry.